Published: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 12:02 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 5:29 p.m.

SARASOTA COUNTY - The plan that regulates growth in much of rural Sarasota County was years in the making, and pretty much everyone found something not to like about it.

Opponents of suburban sprawl thought county government was allowing too much development in areas where little more than cows and two-lane roads currently exist. Developers saw an unprofitable straitjacket on their land.

They fought in public meetings. They squared off in court. They invested hundreds of hours and millions of dollars. The Great Recession put the issues on the back burner, but they never went away.

Today, the process is poised to start all over again when the County Commission reopens the debate over the 2050 plan, one of the most controversial and drawn-out public policy disputes in county history.

The issue is hotly contested because the stakes are so high. Most of the large tracts of undeveloped land left in Sarasota County are governed by 2050.

Landowners have proposed 37 revisions to the plan that they say are necessary to make it commercially viable.

They argue that regulations requiring more compact, walkable communities surrounded by large amounts of open space may sound good but are often impractical. They also are attacking aspects of the plan that require constant monitoring to ensure that growth pays for itself.

Opponents counter that the proposed changes would gut the 2050 plan, encouraging sprawl and exempting developers from paying the full cost of extending services and infrastructure to remote areas.

The debate strikes at the heart of two long-running community discussions that also resonate regionally and across the state: How to pay for growth, and how to balance the short-term financial needs of developers with long-term concerns about making communities vibrant and convenient places to live.

Revisiting those issues is likely to be divisive, said Lourdes Ramirez, president of the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations and an opponent of the changes.

"This was really a huge controversial topic where everybody gave a little," Ramirez said. "I can't see how they can even consider" major revisions.

But landowners are determined.

"Under 2050, as it's currently drawn, nothing will ever be built," said developer Pat Neal.

Urban boundary

County leaders have long resisted approving large developments in rural areas, worried they would be inefficient and costly to serve.

The county created an urban service boundary in 1975 and refused to expand roads or extend water, sewer and other government services beyond it.

The boundary largely follows Interstate 75, severely restricting development east of the federal highway.

Over the decades, as developers used up most of the available land in northern Sarasota County west of I-75, landowners out east began clamoring to put subdivisions on their properties.

An advisory group formed in the late 1990s. Environmentalists sued to try and block the plan in 2003. The final rules went into place in 2004, but the housing market crash kept most developers from moving ahead.

Only one housing project near Venice has started construction under a 2050-style plan.

What finally emerged through 2050 was an agreement to allow housing developments in rural areas that had largely been zoned for agriculture.

But in exchange, the plan requires compact new developments to mimic communities like Sarasota, Venice and Bradenton that have vibrant downtown districts and a good balance between shopping, multifamily apartments and condominiums, and single-family houses.

Planners want to avoid problems with sprawl that have plagued cities like North Port, where the community struggles to pay for infrastructure needs and residents complain that there are too many strip malls and no true downtown district.

The push to limit sprawl has become known in planning terms as "new urbanism." It has been the guiding force in community planning for at least the last 15 years. County leaders hired specialized consultants to bring elements of new urbanism to their master development plan.

Now landowners are pushing back.

One of the proposed revisions to 2050 calls on planners to "re-evaluate the 'new urbanism' form of development ... because it is overly prescriptive."

Plan unworkable?

As vice president of planning for LWR Communities — an arm of Lakewood Ranch's developer — Todd Pokrywa is responsible for designing projects that are attractive to both home buyers and businesses.

Pokrywa said new urbanism principles that seek to limit traffic congestion by allowing people to do much of their shopping close to home have not worked.

Businesses have struggled when clustered inside a development rather than on the periphery. Developers have been forced to subsidize commercial centers that are designed to mimic downtown shopping districts.

Strip malls along major traffic corridors bring in more customers, Pokrywa said.

"It makes it very difficult for retailers to be successful when they're not on a main collector or arterial where they have some drive-by traffic," he said.

Sarasota attorney Jim Turner, whose family owns the 10,000-acre High Hat ranch that stretches between Fruitville Road and Clark Road east of I-75, also finds fault with new urbanism, which he calls a "utopian ideal."

The 2050 plan "didn't work in the hottest housing economy ever," Turner said. "So what was the outlet for that housing demand? Everybody had to live in North Port. It created sprawl in South Sarasota County."

Turner also chafes at provisions in 2050 that call for large amounts of open space. He said the plan forces houses to be clustered on just 20 percent of his property, creating small lots that are less marketable.

But the most controversial element of 2050 boils down to money.

Paying for growth

The plan now calls for "fiscal neutrality," with developers paying for increased demands on government infrastructure and services.

Growth control advocate Bill Zoller said in an email that, "Fiscal neutrality was always the major creative element that was the linchpin of the entire plan."

Developers must generate reports proving that their projects will not require new roads, schools, fire stations and other government services, or pay those costs.

Periodic updates are required.

If the updated reports find more demand for government services than predicted, developers must pay more.

Pokrywa, the Lakewood Ranch planner, said those future costs are too unpredictable.

"We need certainty," Pokrywa said. "It's not just something we desire. When you go to get a project financed, we're not going to have a lender look favorably on something with a lot of uncertainty."

Lakewood Ranch officials are hoping to expand south into Sarasota County, but that plan is on hold for now.

"We're not going to build the first house unless we know we can build the last house," Pokrywa said.

Pat Neal, the only developer to proceed under 2050 guidelines, said his 1,999-home Grand Palm community would not have been feasible if he did not have deep pockets.

"I've invested all my own money in it because it would be impossible to get a loan," he said.

But Dan Lobeck, of the group Control Growth Now, said developers are lobbying to get rid of the monitoring reports because they know the initial reports severely underestimate the true cost of development.

"Developers play their games, hire consultants to make false assumptions, whatever is necessary to get them off the hook from paying these fees," he said.

New leaders

The dispute goes before a county commission that has been reshuffled since the original 2050 debate.

The revamped commission — one that now more closely mirrors the makeup of the Manatee County commission in recent years — is expected to be more friendly to development interests.

Commissioners requested the list of proposed 2050 changes. County planners held 10 meetings with developers from September to January to gather their input.

Growth control advocates say they were not invited to those gatherings, which resulted in a laundry list of 2050 complaints.

Any changes could take months.

Neal said he would not be surprised if the debate drags on for years.

"This is a complicated, comprehensive process and it involves two thirds of Sarasota County's area, so it needs to be well thought out," he said.

<p><em>SARASOTA COUNTY</em> - The plan that regulates growth in much of rural Sarasota County was years in the making, and pretty much everyone found something not to like about it.</p><p>Opponents of suburban sprawl thought county government was allowing too much development in areas where little more than cows and two-lane roads currently exist. Developers saw an unprofitable straitjacket on their land.</p><p>They fought in public meetings. They squared off in court. They invested hundreds of hours and millions of dollars. The Great Recession put the issues on the back burner, but they never went away.</p><p>Today, the process is poised to start all over again when the County Commission reopens the debate over the 2050 plan, one of the most controversial and drawn-out public policy disputes in county history.</p><p>The issue is hotly contested because the stakes are so high. Most of the large tracts of undeveloped land left in Sarasota County are governed by 2050.</p><p>Landowners have proposed 37 revisions to the plan that they say are necessary to make it commercially viable.</p><p>They argue that regulations requiring more compact, walkable communities surrounded by large amounts of open space may sound good but are often impractical. They also are attacking aspects of the plan that require constant monitoring to ensure that growth pays for itself.</p><p>Opponents counter that the proposed changes would gut the 2050 plan, encouraging sprawl and exempting developers from paying the full cost of extending services and infrastructure to remote areas.</p><p>The debate strikes at the heart of two long-running community discussions that also resonate regionally and across the state: How to pay for growth, and how to balance the short-term financial needs of developers with long-term concerns about making communities vibrant and convenient places to live.</p><p>Revisiting those issues is likely to be divisive, said Lourdes Ramirez, president of the Sarasota County Council of Neighborhood Associations and an opponent of the changes.</p><p>"This was really a huge controversial topic where everybody gave a little," Ramirez said. "I can't see how they can even consider" major revisions.</p><p>But landowners are determined.</p><p>"Under 2050, as it's currently drawn, nothing will ever be built," said developer Pat Neal.</p><p><b>Urban boundary</b></p><p>County leaders have long resisted approving large developments in rural areas, worried they would be inefficient and costly to serve.</p><p>The county created an urban service boundary in 1975 and refused to expand roads or extend water, sewer and other government services beyond it.</p><p>The boundary largely follows Interstate 75, severely restricting development east of the federal highway.</p><p>Over the decades, as developers used up most of the available land in northern Sarasota County west of I-75, landowners out east began clamoring to put subdivisions on their properties.</p><p>An advisory group formed in the late 1990s. Environmentalists sued to try and block the plan in 2003. The final rules went into place in 2004, but the housing market crash kept most developers from moving ahead.</p><p>Only one housing project near Venice has started construction under a 2050-style plan.</p><p>What finally emerged through 2050 was an agreement to allow housing developments in rural areas that had largely been zoned for agriculture. </p><p>But in exchange, the plan requires compact new developments to mimic communities like Sarasota, Venice and Bradenton that have vibrant downtown districts and a good balance between shopping, multifamily apartments and condominiums, and single-family houses.</p><p>Planners want to avoid problems with sprawl that have plagued cities like North Port, where the community struggles to pay for infrastructure needs and residents complain that there are too many strip malls and no true downtown district.</p><p>The push to limit sprawl has become known in planning terms as "new urbanism." It has been the guiding force in community planning for at least the last 15 years. County leaders hired specialized consultants to bring elements of new urbanism to their master development plan.</p><p>Now landowners are pushing back.</p><p>One of the proposed revisions to 2050 calls on planners to "re-evaluate the 'new urbanism' form of development ... because it is overly prescriptive."</p><p><b>Plan unworkable?</b></p><p>As vice president of planning for LWR Communities — an arm of Lakewood Ranch's developer — Todd Pokrywa is responsible for designing projects that are attractive to both home buyers and businesses.</p><p>Pokrywa said new urbanism principles that seek to limit traffic congestion by allowing people to do much of their shopping close to home have not worked.</p><p>Businesses have struggled when clustered inside a development rather than on the periphery. Developers have been forced to subsidize commercial centers that are designed to mimic downtown shopping districts.</p><p>Strip malls along major traffic corridors bring in more customers, Pokrywa said.</p><p>"It makes it very difficult for retailers to be successful when they're not on a main collector or arterial where they have some drive-by traffic," he said.</p><p>Sarasota attorney Jim Turner, whose family owns the 10,000-acre High Hat ranch that stretches between Fruitville Road and Clark Road east of I-75, also finds fault with new urbanism, which he calls a "utopian ideal."</p><p>The 2050 plan "didn't work in the hottest housing economy ever," Turner said. "So what was the outlet for that housing demand? Everybody had to live in North Port. It created sprawl in South Sarasota County."</p><p>Turner also chafes at provisions in 2050 that call for large amounts of open space. He said the plan forces houses to be clustered on just 20 percent of his property, creating small lots that are less marketable.</p><p>But the most controversial element of 2050 boils down to money.</p><p><b>Paying for growth</b></p><p>The plan now calls for "fiscal neutrality," with developers paying for increased demands on government infrastructure and services.</p><p>Growth control advocate Bill Zoller said in an email that, "Fiscal neutrality was always the major creative element that was the linchpin of the entire plan."</p><p>Developers must generate reports proving that their projects will not require new roads, schools, fire stations and other government services, or pay those costs.</p><p>Periodic updates are required.</p><p>If the updated reports find more demand for government services than predicted, developers must pay more.</p><p>Pokrywa, the Lakewood Ranch planner, said those future costs are too unpredictable.</p><p>"We need certainty," Pokrywa said. "It's not just something we desire. When you go to get a project financed, we're not going to have a lender look favorably on something with a lot of uncertainty."</p><p>Lakewood Ranch officials are hoping to expand south into Sarasota County, but that plan is on hold for now.</p><p>"We're not going to build the first house unless we know we can build the last house," Pokrywa said.</p><p>Pat Neal, the only developer to proceed under 2050 guidelines, said his 1,999-home Grand Palm community would not have been feasible if he did not have deep pockets.</p><p>"I've invested all my own money in it because it would be impossible to get a loan," he said.</p><p>But Dan Lobeck, of the group Control Growth Now, said developers are lobbying to get rid of the monitoring reports because they know the initial reports severely underestimate the true cost of development.</p><p>"Developers play their games, hire consultants to make false assumptions, whatever is necessary to get them off the hook from paying these fees," he said.</p><p><b>New leaders</b></p><p>The dispute goes before a county commission that has been reshuffled since the original 2050 debate.</p><p>The revamped commission — one that now more closely mirrors the makeup of the Manatee County commission in recent years — is expected to be more friendly to development interests.</p><p>Commissioners requested the list of proposed 2050 changes. County planners held 10 meetings with developers from September to January to gather their input.</p><p>Growth control advocates say they were not invited to those gatherings, which resulted in a laundry list of 2050 complaints.</p><p>Any changes could take months.</p><p>Neal said he would not be surprised if the debate drags on for years. </p><p>"This is a complicated, comprehensive process and it involves two thirds of Sarasota County's area, so it needs to be well thought out," he said.</p>